Eliminating child labour

Despite the existence of a government programme, titled, 'National Plan of Action on Elimination of Child Labour 2021-25',eliminating the scourge of child labour from society does not seem to be as easy as some in the government would have us believe. Consider the recently published reports of the 'Establishment-based Sector-wise Working Children Survey-2023' and the 'National Child Labour Survey-2022'.The reports show that 1.78 million children aged between 5.0 to 17 years in the country are engaged in child labour and of whom over a million are engaged in hazardous labour. So, one wonders how the programme could be achieved within the stipulated time, given the optimism expressed by the state minister for planning on the occasion of the release of the report on child labour survey last week.

Optimism is one thing and the facts on the ground are quite another. Though child labour is a curse and the government has many plans and programmes in place to address it with timelines set for the purpose, the point that is being missed here is that 'child labour' is not an issue isolated from the rest of social evils.These children employed in labour, both non-hazardous and hazardous, are helping their families. So, they could not have been in such an unfortunate situation had their parents and guardians not consented to it. Child labour is also not a new phenomenon. It has been with us since the pre-industrial feudal times. Even in modern times, in the rural backwaters, farmers, despite their poverty, want more children so they (the children) would grow up to help them as farmhands. In the urban slums, too, the psychology of the parents of the working children is more or less the same. This is why one would often come across children picking garbage, or selling flower, washing car or doing other odd jobs. These children are looked upon by their parents as an asset for the family. However, this is no argument for perpetuating the social curse of child labour indefinitely. The problem lies with the very idea of taking child labour as an issue isolated from the overarching problem of poverty. Without alleviating poverty once and for all, can we expect that child labour could be eliminated overnight?

Like poverty in general, child labour is a socio-economic issue. It is good to learn that the poverty rate came down to 18.7 per cent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)'s Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022,  compared to the findings of a similar survey done in 2016 when the poverty rate was 24.3 per cent. The fact that the extreme poverty rate dropped to 5.6 per cent from 12.9 per cent is also something to lap up. But poverty rate is also not purely a number. Worse yet, it may change very fast. Persistent inflation with attendant rising cost of living in recent times has made living still harder for the poor who came under the BBS survey of 2022. But these statistics are not yet in hand. In fact, the poverty rate, especially, extreme poverty rate must have increased sharply in the meanwhile. What are the children of these new poor including those of extremely poor families, are expected to be doing now? Though we do not have any statistics about them at the moment to discuss at the various fora dedicated to expensive research on poverty, child labour and so on, those hapless children, if fortunate enough, may manage a work, even a hazardous one, to help their families. The less fortunate ones will have no choice other than to beg or worse, steal. Otherwise, they along with their family members will have to starve. So, what are those concerned about eliminating child labour from society would suggest the starving children and their parents to do? The obvious answer is urgent government intervention to reach food to those affected families. Even if the government opt for such measures, that is not going to address the issue permanently. If children are to be spared the punishing work of helping at a workshop, the most hazardous workplace for children, or at a city transport or in other such sweatshop conditions, the permanent answer would be to provide  opportunity for work for the main adult breadwinners of their families. The focus of all the discussion and efforts to free society from child labour should be to involve the parents of the working children in income generating activities.

There are, no doubt, efforts at non-government levels to create income generating activities for the poor through small loans or what they call microcredit. But in final analysis, that is also a stopgap measure. Making massive public investment to train and create jobs for poor families is the only way to wean their children off toiling to support their parents. Only then their parents could be motivated to send their children to school and not to work.

[email protected]